This is Andrew Hovell's blog. He lives in Northern England. He plans for a living. He likes tea

June 20, 2014

APSOTW Update - joint winners

In this case, it's because a couple of entries slipped through the cracks.

So below is the feedback to Tiffany, who is now joint winner with Samara......

Apart from the Samara, it was only yourself who didn't play around with conventional variations of health. You did something different, that might cut through, that might work.

I love the simple analysis of the problem and the very commercial reality of the limits of distribution alone. In FMCG, one the darkest secrets about 'role for comms' is being seen to promote the brand to secure shelf space.

Few focused on the simple fact that SoBe actually tastes better than the alternatives.

So obviously, the objective is encouraging trial.

I really loved the tension in your insight work of healthy but not the extremes.

And the analysis of how taste works was probably the best single piece of work anyone did in this project. I'll thieve that myself.

If only after that you hadn't diluted all that momentum with much less interesting proposition. I thought you were carving clear water between this brand and everyone else, but 'living well never tasted so good' just seemed a but same old same old. And the imagery next to it seemed very, well Danone .

It's a double shame, because I thought your delivery in this deck was ace. Great pace, great writing, great design.

I didn't really want a proposition, more a great communications task that would bring your clear opportunity to life .That tension between pain and pleasure was interesting and I did wonder if the role for comms was credibly demonstrating the experience in a way that shows you understand and admire your audience. Perhaps showing at moments when 'I know I should but I have a life to live' Or literally turning moments of everyday pain into pleasure.

So I felt just a little let down by the plan too, which felt a little like a sexier version of sampling campaign trying to deliver a little more scale. You were the only person who actually bothered to look at the target's media habits, so well played, but I wanted to seem something that added scale and get the audience talking, as you show they are heavily into social.

And Jay did incredibly well too...

Great you used data to get to a simple challenge

The maths is really persuasive. Now from a personal perspective, I don't usually favor loyalty strategies and I kind of think it would be easier to get lots of light buyers to buy one a year, but as I say, great job at scoping out an opportunity.

I get you can do VERY efficient comms, I also love you're not messing around with brand planning and sticking to the task!

Your insight IS fundamental but is perhaps a little obvious. Light touch health is quite common in a variety of categories. A drill into WHY this is important I think could have unearthed an interesting tension. But I can't deny it's a clear role for comms you have uncovered.

There really is something in 'whatever suits' which fits usage occasion, perhaps there was an opportunity for comms to persuade your audience to do ONE more bit of exercise per week to build frequency.

Also thought there was something in your got milk case study. What is funny about that case study is that it was aimed at consumption - reminding people of all the situations milk was an essential ingredient, which worked to a great degree, but Goodbye Silverstein will probably tell you it really worked by building penetration by making milk cool!!

That said, an simple comms task - whenever you do your kind of exercise, make sure you have SOBE water would have been interesting.

I guess that's the ultimate feedback. There's some great thinking in here and a great piece of maths in framing the growth opportunity. You just need to work harder at saying a little less -a tight story with rich hooks your thinking hangs on. A few killer headlines or sentences .

Rob's feedbackl:

What I like about Jay’s response is he used the available data to identify one clear solution to the challenge.

I don’t know if the ‘Got Milk’ case is the best example given milk and flavoured water occupy very different emotional spaces in our audiences minds, but I get what was being said.

Where it all went a bit wobbly for me was that the solution to this maths assignment was ‘create a brand that is in line with our audiences values’.

Based on what was described, our audience our women who are health conscious who do a bit of physical activity each week.

A bit of investigation into the insight that really defines this audience could have worked wonders for this submission … but sadly, I feel Jay went for the ‘abracadabra moment’, rather than backing it up with a solution that would make it all come together and fulfil the goal that was set out so clearly in the upfront observations.

That said, a couple of nice executional/distribution ideas … but I feel they could have been articulated much more uniquely if they’d understood more about the specific target audience.

So that's it. I'm going to upload all submissions at some point so everybody can have a look and be intimidated by all hard work and pieces of great thinking. I'll let you know when it's up.